Live with uncertainty, says PM Abbott

Prime Minister Tony Abbott says he can empathise with workers who fear their job contracts will expire because he is on one as well.

Mr Abbott was confronted on Fairfax Radio 3AW by a caller named Chantelle, who said she was facing the end of her contract as a home and community care worker.

"We don't know what is going to happen after that three years," she said.

Mr Abbott responded by saying: "I have a three-year contract as well and I don't know what is going to happen after three years."

"We all have to live with uncertainty and it's not nice and sometimes you've got a sick feeing in the pit of your stomach when you contemplate the future."

However, the prime minister said the government was doing its best to improve the economy and get the budget under control.

Faced with opinion polls giving Labor an election-winning lead and anger over his first budget, Mr Abbott said the coalition was in "political jeopardy" and first-term governments were "not invulnerable".